Australian Approaches to Internet Content Regulation

Concern over access by minors to undesirable material over the Internet has led to a urry of regulatory activity by Australian governments since 1993. This article examines these responses in the context of the existing law { focusing upon the development of appropriate legislative models for on-line services and content classiication. Many of these approaches require some level of self-regulation through Industry Codes of Practice, and we examine the likely requirements of such codes, their role in limiting liability of service providers for the transmission of prohibited material, and the potential for legal and ethical breaches by computer professionals as a result of compliance with code provisions.